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A blog dedicated to the archaeology of Jess Franco's films and discussion of cult, arthouse, classic, genre and sometimes mainstream films from around the world. Send your reviews to the new email posted below and I will post them or comment below each blog. BLOG CREATED, MODERATED AND EDITED BY ROBERT MONELL: Est. July 2006. The written content of all posts (excepting quotes from reviews, books, other publications) COPYRIGHT ROBERT MONELL and the authors.CONTACT: renegovar@yahoo.comArt Direction/Blog Design: Kimberly Lindbergs

VISIT ROBERT MONELL'S CINEMADROME!

WATCH THE ORIGINAL SCI-FI HORROR WEB SERIES RETURN OF THE BLOODSUCKING NAZI ZOMBIES! on NECRONOMICON OF THE LIVING DEAD!

CINEMADROME is an offshoot of this blog: hosted by yuku for further public discussions of Jess Franco films, European Trash Cinema, Giallo films, Fantastique, Horror cinema from around the world, B movies, International Arthouse cinema, Expanded cinema, Hollywood classics, new and vintage DVD reviews, my online cinema diary, place for rants and general reflections on movies, culture, Chat Topics and much more...Special illustrated essays, videos, images & new DVD/ VIDEO reviews will be added regularly regarding films from all genres.

Kill them all and come back alone! The towering, vision-challenged cannibal...

From GRITOS EN LA NOCHE (1961) to SNAKEWOMAN (2005) the search for an elusive woman forms the structure of the narrative. Women are at the center of Franco's world and filmography, vampires like Irina in FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973) or Soledad Miranda's Countess in VAMPYROS LESBOS, sadists like Eugenie in EUGENIE DE SADE (1970) or Martine in PLAISIR A TROIS (1973). Women as predators.

Sometimes, as in his numerous Women in Prison titles, the woman can be both the predator (the female wardens in 99 WOMEN, BARBED WIRE DOLLS, etc) and victims (the tortured inmates in those films (usually played by Lina Romay).

Watching both again recently allowed me to set aside the fact that they are hardly first tier Franco or even good cannibal films and take them for what they are: in the case of DEVIL HUNTER, a monster movie-adventure as the director points out in the Severin DVD interview; a personal statement of his position in the industry and a commentary on Italian cannibal films in CANNIBALS.

Given the availability of Al Cliver, who had already appeared in Fulci's successful comback, ZOMBIE (1979), I take it that these were shot back-to-back. DEVIL HUNTER, a French-Spanish-German co production, CANNIBALS, a French-Spanish co production with the Italians as perhaps silent partners (A FILM BY FRANCO PROSPERI). Both deal with an adventurer-hunter (Cliver) who travels to a tropical region in search of an abducted by woman. They both end with Cliver having to fight a cannibal to get away with the woman. The fact that the woman is a lithe blond in both cases is not insignificant. White is civilized, Black is primitive in both. Ironically, in CANNIBALS, the cannibal tribe are played by Spanish gypsies (according to the director) who are not black but do wear colorful, stylized facial makeup.

When the Portuguese guide, Mr. Martin, shows up, played by Jess Franco himself, it's difficult to not hear the character's self defense as the director's own self-summation. He complains that he's just trying to keep body and soul together by dealing with both sides of the struggle. The sexual abuse of the abducted woman in DEVIL HUNTER, then, is a crude way to insert sexploitation (excuse the bad pun) into a gore-adventure scenario, while there's no sex at all, but jaw-dropping slow motion cannibal feasts in CANNIBALS.

Jess is having fun with the genre he obviously has little respect for. He's not really well-suited to either adventure films or cannibal-gore films. What he can do is have as much fun as possible, put in his own personal comments and self-critique, and run for cover.

26 January, 2010

I recently discovered this online filmography of Lina Romay. Please note any omissions/factual errors you find in the comment area.

The filmo lists her involvement with The Black Man's Guide to Understanding Black Women (executive producer), a film of which I was totally unaware. It's on the IMDB as a US production but her name isn't mentioned. Can anyone clarify this credit?

Also the German WIP hardcore sleazefest ANGEL OF DEATH 2 (2007) isn't mentioned. Or am I missing something? In any case, that's a Franco-related film I've yet to catch.

18 January, 2010

These 19th Century structures, including Sintra's Municipal tower, are captured in the opening shots of DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN (1971).

The castle at Sintra, Portugal, an official photo with the national flag. NOT a shot from a Jess Franco film.

Below is an example of a familiar location seen in a number of Jess Franco films. The below shot is from VOODOO PASSION aka RUF DER BLONDEN GOTTIN (1977). The same location, shot from the exact same set-up also appears in CECILIA aka Aberraciones Sexuales de una Mujer Casada (1980). It is near the Sintra-Cascais Natural Park.

Sintra was considered by Lord Byron to be the most beautiful city in the world. The magical atmosphere of such films as VIRGIN AMONG THE LIVING DEAD, DRACULA CONTRA FRANKENSTEIN and LA FILLE DE DRACULA also owe much to these locations.

His films always have a certain look to them and it has a lot to do with the recycled locations as well as techniques.

Was this the only viable angle? Maybe. Can anyone identify this location from any other JF films?

15 January, 2010

You've seen her before in several Paul Naschy films. Thanks to Nzoog for this rare photonovel cover and following images.

Ignacio F. Iquino digs deep....

This actress was Satan's midwife in SECTA SINIESTRA (BLOODY SECT), an over-the-top gorefest which isn't available on R1 VHS or DVD and won't be anytime soon! Find out more about her on THE FILMS OF IGNACIO IQUINO...

Ignacio F. Iquino (1910-1994), one of Spain's most prolific and eclectic exploitation directors, gives even Jess Franco a run for his money.

Tired of reading similar sounding reviews of the same movies over and over?

If titles like BLOODY SECT and ABORTO CRIMINAL pique your interest, if you are in search of reviews, discussion and rare, colorful images of films rarely, if ever, discussed on most Internet movie sites, visit THE FILMS OF IGNACIO IQUINO thread now featured on CINEMADROME, where the outre, the ultra-obscure, the hard-to-find are unearthed, examined and revealed.

Read Nzoog's in-depth reviews of Iquino's obscure, outrageous filmography illustrated with many rare images, posters and stills from his collection.

"Paula-Paula; an audiovisual experience" is the new Jess Franco feature film. Inspired by Stevenson's Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it's an homage to the master musician Friedrich Gulda.One of the most strange films by Jess Franco, "Paula-Paula" is, in his own words, a different look to the erotic and mystery cinema..."

More links and information from the company who will release this DVD of Jess Franco's newest ... an experimental-erotic film noir.

04 January, 2010

Joe D'Amato fan: A Duel of the Titans? D'Amato would rework three mid 1970's Franco films into the composite JUSTINE (1979).

D'Amato took a chance and produced the final film of the virtually unemployable Lucio Fulci. A financial failure, the moody, low key thriller is one of the Fulici's least gory and most finely tuned horror films.

Let me start by stating that if Aristide Massaccesi aka Joe D'Amato did nothing else except produce Claudio Fragasso's stunningly round the bend TROLL 2 (1990) he would be qualify for immortality in my book. But he did more... much, much more.

Aristide Massaccesi was a cinematographer (WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE?), a producer of such films as Michele Soavi's acclaimed directorial debut STAGE FRIGHT (1987), and a director of countless films bearing the credit Directed by Joe D'Amato. Look at the list below from the IMDB. I'm pretty sure it's incomplete. It makes him even more prolific than Jess Franco (whom the IMDB gives 190 features, which is also probably incomplete), who is often cited as the most prolific director of all time. I once wrote a series of columns for the late, great ETC magazine titled FRANCO VS. D'AMATO. But the two Titans really form kind of the Yin and Yang of European Trash Cinema from the 1960s to the present. It's not the quantity, but the quality. Right?

While waiting for a ride to a New Year's Eve party last Thursday I watched D'Amato's BLUE ANGEL CAFE aka OBJECT OF DESIRE on the PRIVATE SCREENINGS video. This 1989 filmed-in-New Orleans soft core melodrama is about a candidate for Governor (Richard Brown) who becomes obsessed and then destroyed by his lust for a cheap lounge chanteuse (Tara Buckman). It's a cheap, glossily photographed, sleazy, highly entertaining update of a classic film. And it has an electrifying uncredited cameo by Laura Gemser doing of nude photo shoot of Ms. Buckman. It took either courage or a mixture of greed and pretension to use Von Sternberg's masterwork as a model for this FILMIRAGE knock-off. But it works. It looks like a cable telefilm now and the rather mild sex scenes seem tame given what is now available via VOD and on the Internet.

Later, during the party, I discussed D'Amato's career with a friend who expressed "disappointment" with his total immersion in hard core porno from the early 80s to the time of his death. Actually, the hard core numbers I've seen are impressively photographed and have a lighter-than-air quality with little of the mean spirit quality hard core sometimes has. They are well-crafted fantasies by a master cinematographer-director.

But that was then and this is now. Massaccesi became Joe D'Amato after using his real name for his best film, LA MORTE HA SORRISO ALL'ASSASSINO (1973) aka DEATH SMILES AT MURDER, a non-linear Gothic featuring Ewa Aulin and Klaus Kinski, a haunting Berto Pisano score and an ending which rewards multiple viewings. It stands up to the best of Mario Bava and Riccardo Freda but the director has nowhere near their reputation. He doesn't even have the wide fan base of Franco or Lucio Fulci.

As the IMDB filmography illustrates he's still credited with films up to 2005! That's a bulging portfolio with numerous hidden treasures and pleasant surprises like BLUE ANGEL CAFE.

I think Massaccesi/D'Amato is every bit as qualified for auteur status as many others. His work ranges from westerns (including the hard core JOE D'AMATO'S OUTLAWS), nunsploitation (IMAGES IN A CONVENT), Cannibal films (EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS), zombie films (EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD which mixed hard core, Laura Gemser and tropical flesh eaters) killer-shark horror (DEEP BLOOD), post-apocalypse sci-fi (ENDGAME; 2020 TEXAS GLADIATORS), peplum (the 1982 CALIGULA: THE UNTOLD STORY, 30 seconds of which appears during an orgy scene in Borowczyk's 1983 THE ART OF LOVE [see the new DVD from Severin]). Given that Borowczyk is often cited as an upscale pornographer D'Amato may seem like a busy imitator.

In 1979 D'Amato took the role of supervising editor, compositing three Franco films, reworking them into JUSTINE (1979-1980), a hardcore feature he post-produced. I'll be discussing this process in more detail in a future blog.

I certainly haven't seen as many D'Amato films as I have Jess Franco films and I only have a fraction of his extensive filmography on VHS/DVD, whereas my Franco collection is taking over everything else. But Joe D'Amato was a worthy, self-made artist/artisan of the erotic and this January 23rd marks the 11th anniversary of his death.

Rudy (1997) (V)... aka Rudolph Valentino, American Lover (International: English title)... aka Rudy, the Valentino Story (International: English title)... aka The Lover: The Valentino Story (International: English title)